The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

RAY SUAREZ: Good evening. I'm Ray Suarez. Jim Lehrer is off this New Year's Day. On the NewsHour tonight: Our summary of the news; then reports on the international effort to aid the victims of Iran's devastating earthquake; designer steroids and the government's attempts to crackdown on them; how to make Saddam Hussein talk to his CIA interrogators; and some historical perspective on the big events of last year.

NEWS SUMMARY

RAY SUAREZ: The New Year 2004 arrived eventfully, but safely, under a high terrorism alert and unprecedented security. Nearly a million revelers counted down the dropping crystal ball in New York City's Times Square. The stroke of midnight triggered a deluge of confetti, and the strains of "Auld Lang Syne," but not before celebrants were subjected to thorough searches by heavily armed New York police. Authorities said the festivities were being monitored by roof-top sniper teams, as aircraft patrolled overhead. The police reported no arrests and no injuries. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who'd urged New Yorkers not to be afraid, was pleased with the results as he greeted the city's first newborn of the New Year. Fireworks lit up the Statue of Liberty as well as the skies over Chicago, and Las Vegas. Both cities had restricted airspace to over flights only by commercial, military, or law enforcement aircraft. Stepped up airport security resulted in a British Airways plane being detained for three hours at Washington's Dulles International Airport last night. An arriving passenger complained.

DAVID LITWICK: We were only told by the British Airways pilot that federal authorities had requested that they park mid- tarmac and await further instructions.

RAY SUAREZ: British Airways canceled the same London to Washington flight today, citing security advice from the British government. President Bush kicked off the new year today with a quail hunting trip in southern Texas. He wished locals gathered at the airport a happy new year before heading off with his father and friends. Tight security didn't deter large crowds in Pasadena, California today. An estimated 800,000 gathered for the Rose Parade. And in Philadelphia, warm, clear weather drew large numbers for the annual Mummers Parade. Football fans had plenty to watch today, with no fewer than five college bowl games. The death toll from a New Year's Eve car bombing in Baghdad rose to at least six today. The blast targeted a restaurant popular with foreigners. Three Los Angeles Times reporters were among the more than 30 wounded. It came several hours before midnight, under heightened security measures across Iraq. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack. A bombing at a New Year's Eve concert in Indonesia's Aceh Province killed ten, including three children. 45 were injured. It was the worst attack against civilians since the government broke a truce and launched a military offensive against separatist rebels last may. Insurgents denied responsibility for the blast. They've been fighting for independence for Aceh since 1976. U.S. patrols in eastern Afghanistan have killed as many as 14 suspected militants, the military announced today. Three U.S. soldiers were slightly wounded, in clashes since yesterday near the Afghan- Pakistani border. Suspected Taliban and al-Qaida fighters have staged recent attacks in the area. Also today, Afghanistan's grand council delayed voting on parts of a post-Taliban constitution. The stall followed a boycott by delegates opposed to President Karzai. They object to his insistence on a strong presidency claiming it entrenches ethnic Pashtuns in power, while locking out minority parties. The council will reconvene on Saturday. Rescue crews in Iran today pulled more people alive from flattened buildings, nearly a week after a massive earthquake leveled most of the city of Bam. Medical experts said they had defied the odds against surviving such conditions. Officials estimated the final death toll could reach thirty to fifty thousand. We'll have more on this in a moment. A key Iran Kwan official said U.S. Assistance may ease tensions against the two countries. Mohammad Reza Khatami, Iran's deputy parliamentary speaker and brother to the president, told Reuters News Service, "I'm sure that goodwill will be answered with goodwill." In Texas, President Bush had this to say.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: We're showing the Iranian people the American people care, that we've got great compassion for human suffering, and ease restrictions in order to be able to get humanitarian aid into the country. The Iranian government must listen to the voices of those who long for freedom, must turn over al-Qaida, that that are in their custody, and must abandon their nuclear weapons program. In the meantime, you know, we appreciate the fact the Iranian government is willing to allow our humanitarian aid flights into their country, and it's a good thing to do. It's right to take care of people when they hurt.

RAY SUAREZ: The U.S. broke diplomatic ties with Iran after radical psalmists seized the U.S. Embassy in 1979. Israel said today it would lift a blockade of the West Bank city of Jenin. The Palestinian town, known for harboring Islamic militants, has been surrounded by Israeli forces for much of the three- year intifada. It was the scene of heavy fighting in 2002. Meanwhile, an Egyptian diplomat on a mission to restart peace talks met with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat today. Osama el Baz urged Palestinians to set a good example by ending violence against Israel to encourage Israeli leaders to reciprocate. That's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the latest from Iran's earthquake site, cracking down on designer steroids, how to interrogate Saddam Hussein, and our historians look back at the year that was.

UPDATE - DEADLY EARTHQUAKE

RAY SUAREZ: Now to our Iran earthquake update. We begin with a report narrated by Richard Vaughan of Associated Press Television News.

RICHARD VAUGHAN: Eight-year-old Zahra Azimi is recovering in a French field hospital. She was pulled from the rubble of her home after six days. Amazingly, she had only minor leg injuries. An 80-year-old blind and deaf woman at the same tent hospital also spent six days waiting to be rescued. Her only injury was a broken shoulder, from which she's expected to fully recover. Several babies have been born since the earthquake. Three boys were delivered at the French field hospital and two girls at a Ukrainian one. They provide glimmers of light amidst so much tragedy. It's been an international effort to temper the effects of the mass-scale destruction in Bam. American aid workers are amongst those who rushed to the remote region to help, assistance which stands out as rare contact between the nations since relations broke down in 1979. Despite the hardships, the Iranian hosts had armfuls of presents with which to welcome Americans.

RAY SUAREZ: Earlier this evening I spoke with one of those Americans: Dr. Bill Barker, a member of the Fairfax County, Virginia, urban search and rescue team. The team arrived in Iran earlier this week. Welcome to the program, sir.

DR. BILL BARKER: Thank you.

RAY SUAREZ: Dr. Barker, there have been conflicting reports about whether anyone has survived more than a few days under the rubble. As a medical professional, how could you explain somebody holding on longer than the 72 hours that a lot of rescue workers put at as the outside figure?

DR. BILL BARKER: The 72 hours is kind of an outside figure for any sort of widespread or significant numbers of survivors. But people can actually live in the rubble for, depending on weather conditions and that sort of thing, as much as five to seven days. Usually when they do, they've been trapped in what we call a void space where a wall or a roof has fallen and forms like a triangular area and they don't sustain any crush injury, but you they can't get out because they're trapped in an area with no exit. There have been people that have survived longer. There was one or two in Taiwan, when we went to that earthquake, that were rescued after I believe it was seven or eight days. But in that particular case, there actually was an aquarium that was not broken in the earthquake that they were using for water. And if you've got water and the temperatures are reasonable, could you probably go two or three weeks, although I don't think that's going to happen very often.

RAY SUAREZ: Give us an idea of how the place is functioning now these many days after the earthquake. Is it a trial still getting water, getting food to those who have remained behind?

DR. BILL BARKER: Actually, water has not been a problem in terms of drinking water. We went out and did an assessment to assist the U.N. today on health care, sanitation, structural needs and found that water was not an issue, drinking water, that there are large quantities of bottled water being brought in. I spoke with a group of social workers and social work students from Tehran that are here helping, and they said that food isn't a problem either. They said that, while the people would like to have some fresh food, that everybody's getting enough food.

RAY SUAREZ: In the initial days, a lot of the pictures coming from the earthquake area showed people fleeing the city. Have many people who live in Bam normally stayed behind?

DR. BILL BARKER: I can't give you any sort of exact number or even percentage, but that was one of the things that was pretty clear to us today was that a large portion of the populace has left the city. Talking with some of our interpreters and some of the other local people, most of them have gone to other areas both within the state and throughout the country where they have friends or family. Many have gone to the capital city of the state or province, Kerman. We noticed the same thing as we were coming up here, that the highways were just jammed with trucks and cars full of people and personal belongings. But there are quite a lot of people that are still here and living in tents in the streets.

RAY SUAREZ: So they're not taking advantage of the tent cities that are being built for them by international relief agencies?

DR. BILL BARKER: Well, my understanding is that the one tent city that is well under construction that I was able to see the day before yesterday, they actually have not opened it for habitation yet, that they are hoping to move people in within the next few days. But apparently there's some resistance on the part of the local population. I guess they don't want to leave what's left of their home. The Iranian Red Crescent was very well prepared for this disaster, and in fact all through the city are tents with their logo on it. Apparently they have warehouses throughout the country, and those that are still here seem to be living at least in their general vicinity in the quadrant of the city that we surveyed for that.

RAY SUAREZ: What are the biggest medical challenges for those who remain behind in the city?

DR. BILL BARKER: Sanitation is probably the biggest issue. I spoke with a Greek doctor from Doctors to the World at the local Khomeini hospital that was collapsed. They've set up a field hospital in the parking lot, and he said they're starting to see some cases of diarrhea. A meeting at the U.N. Health Committee today, they have started official surveillance of that and they're preparing some standard treatment protocols. But sanitation, even things as simple as having tooth brushes and toothpaste, personal hygiene that seems to be the big biggest problem. But at least so far, it does not seem that anything is even on the verge of reaching epidemic proportions. But that's always a risk after a disaster like this.

RAY SUAREZ: What kind of reception have you received as a member of an American team?

DR. BILL BARKER: It's been wonderful. The people have been very welcoming. We visited an orphanage during our assessment trip today, and the physician that was running the orphanage invited us to stay for dinner, which we couldn't do because we were running behind on getting our work done. But that's really been the reception from everybody. The people seem to love the fact that the Americans are here to help. When we arrived and were setting up our camp at the area where most of the rescue teams and field hospital personnel are encamped, representative of the local revolutionary guard came over and gave us gift bags with pistachios and some pistachio candy and a few other traditional Iranian items and wished us a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. And several people have apologized to us that we have to be here during our holidays. Obviously there's not a lot of Christmas celebration here, and this actually isn't their new year either, but they've gone out of their way to thank us for coming during our holidays and being away from our families. And I felt very safe. It's been very nice.

RAY SUAREZ: Just from your conversation, it seems that a good part of the world has already responded to the plight of this city.

DR. BILL BARKER: Yes, there were search and rescue teams from I believe eighteen to twenty different countries that were here when we arrived. There have been others that have arrived since. There are field hospitals from Ukraine, I believe there's one from Russia and Belgium in addition to one from the United States that started operations today.

RAY SUAREZ: Dr. Bill Barker, Happy New Year. Thanks for being with us.

DR. BILL BARKER: Well, thank you. And happy new year to you.

FOCUS - STEROID CRACKDOWN

RAY SUAREZ: Now a look at a growing controversy in the world of sports: The use of steroids. Spencer Michels reports.

SPENCER MICHELS: More than 25 top athletes paraded through the federal building in San Francisco this fall to testify about their ties to a private laboratory suspected of manufacturing an illegal anabolic steroid never seen before. Some weren't happy. Oakland Raiders running back Tyrone Wheatley hit a photographer on his way to testify. Balco, the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative, is alleged to have been the likely source of a new steroid known as THG, which was touted as being undetectable. The laboratory is the subject of a federal grand jury investigation into drugs and money laundering. Its founder, Victor Conte, denied those allegations, but has refused all further comment. BALCO, which federal agents searched in September, makes and supplies sophisticated nutritional supplements that many athletes use, and works directly with some trainers and athletes. So far, four Oakland Raiders and four track and field stars are reported to have tested positive for THG. Other athletes with ties to BALCO, including San Francisco Giants home run hitter Barry Bonds, testified as well. Bonds has denied using steroids; his trainer is also part of the investigation. In the U.S., synthetic steroids are illegal unless prescribed by a doctor for medical reasons. Mostly available via the Internet or on the black market, anabolic steroids are chemicals related to the male hormone testosterone. When injected or ingested, they build muscle and increase strength. While there are no accurate studies of how many people are on steroids, body builders and athletes are reported to use them frequently. But the athletes are not the main target of this investigation. And that's important, according to San Jose Mercury-News sports writer Elliott Almond, who has covered steroid scandals for 20 years.

ELLIOTT ALMOND: It was one of the first times that the drug testers in Olympic sport or in sport, instead of going after just the athlete, they went after the supplier. They feel that if they can bring some of these mavericks down, that the athletes then won't have a place to go.

SPENCER MICHELS: The U.S. Attorney won't talk about the investigation, even to admit its taking place. But this much is known: A used syringe containing some residue arrived in June at the UCLA Olympic analytical laboratory in Los Angeles, sent anonymously by a track coach. This lab, the only U.S. lab accredited by the International Olympic Committee, is where scientists figured out what the substance was-- the new steroid THG-- and eventually how to detect it. Don Catlin, an M.D. and molecular pharmacologist, has been the lab's director since it opened 22 years ago. Using a computerized machine that recognizes most steroids using electronic fingerprints, his lab searches through samples of urine taken from athletes.

DR. DONALD CATLIN: We know all the fingerprints, and we've programmed the computer to go search for each and every one.

SPENCER MICHELS: But the lab's equipment doesn't recognize designer steroids like THG, manufactured specifically to produce the most muscle growth.

DR. DONALD CATLIN: You take a steroid that exists and you twiddle around with the molecule a little bit so that it's not the same, and that can make it undetectable or we don't know where it is, we don't know how to find it in the urine.

SPENCER MICHELS: Newly created steroids pose a challenge.

DR. DONALD CATLIN: THG is a whole new chapter. It's telling us that after 20 years of fighting the battle, there are still people out there who are bound and determined to figure out ways to beat the system.

SPENCER MICHELS: The Olympic lab's clients include the national football league, the U.S. Olympic team, the NCAA, and other high profile sports groups. Catlin says the lab's work is essential for clean competition.

DR. DONALD CATLIN: If you value sport, if there's something about sport that you like, you will preserve it. And there's only one way to preserve it, and that's to have a level playing field. There are drugs out there that can make the winning difference.

SPENCER MICHELS: Besides the argument that steroids are unfair to athletes who don't use them, steroids are also decried as dangerous to the user's health. At a sports medicine clinic near San Francisco, Dr. William Ross admits it is difficult to quantify the health risks of steroids, but he knows they exist and he occasionally sees them.

DR. WILLIAM ROSS: If we take them in huge amounts, then it can cause high blood pressure, fluid retention, acne, hair loss. In women it tends to masculinize them, make them more like a male; and interestingly in men it tends to give them a higher voice and growth of breasts, it shrinks the testicles. It can create liver injury and very rarely can cause liver cancer.

SPOKESMAN: Champion Karl List.

SPENCER MICHELS: Karl List, a personal trainer who used to be a competitive body builder, used steroids on and off to bulk himself up.

KARL LIST, Former Body Builder: I never really experienced any real physical side effects except for the growth, okay? And since stopping their use, everything's been fine and normal.

SPENCER MICHELS: List is more concerned about the psychological effects.

KARL LIST: They tend to bring this invincible nature out and this anti-social nature out.

SPENCER MICHELS: Anti-social?

DR. DONALD CATLIN: Yeah. Yeah.

SPENCER MICHELS: What do you mean?

DR. DONALD CATLIN: Meaning... meaning that there are three things basically that you want to do as A... as an athlete on steroids depending on the amount of steroids you're using, and they're very primitive, these three things. They're eating, sleeping and then there's a third thing.

SPENCER MICHELS: You're talking about sex.

DR. DONALD CATLIN: Sex. ( Laughs )

SPENCER MICHELS: He used the steroids because his competitors did, and they worked.

DR. DONALD CATLIN: The most I ever squatted in my lifetime, drug-free, was 600 pounds. The most I ever squatted on drugs was 200 pounds more, was 800 pounds. So I mean, you're talking about probably a 15-20 percent gain in just raw strength.

SPENCER MICHELS: List quit using after five years, because his wife, Jodi Friedman-- also a body builder who had never used-- wanted him to stop. Friedman did very well without steroids, but eventually was overtaken by women she was sure were using.

JODI FRIEDMAN: At the competitions, it was clear that what was going on around me was that women were using drugs. And...

SPENCER MICHELS: How was it clear?

JODI FIREDMAN: Because of the way they looked, because they shaved, because they had, you know, very masculine features about them. Their voices were deep and they were huge and tight as a drum. You know, it was not... I was genetically muscular, but I was not... I didn't look like that.

SPENCER MICHELS: Friedman, List and many others are convinced the chemicals are easy to come by at gyms and elsewhere, and that athletes believe they are necessary to compete at the highest levels.

KARL LIST: Even though the stigma may be higher than it's ever been, I think there's a widespread use that's bigger than it's ever been.

SPENCER MICHELS: But officials and the press are overplaying the steroid scandal, according to Dr. Norm Fost, a medical ethicist and pediatrician at the University of Wisconsin. Fost says the scientific data on actual harm from steroids are flimsy and exaggerated. As for the health risks:

DR. NORM FOST: If you want to play in the national hockey league or in the National Football League or be a gymnast even in the Olympics, you're taking risks that are exponentially higher than anything that's even alleged about steroids.

SPENCER MICHELS: Fost claims the playing field is not made uneven, as alleged, if some players choose to use drugs to become stronger.

DR. NORM FOST: Steroids, by everyone's account, are ubiquitously available. There's no professional athlete who couldn't get them if he or she wanted them. So the unfairness argument is just inconsistent with our notions of fairness.

SPENCER MICHELS: Because so much money is at stake in big time sports, including commercials and endorsements, sportswriter Almond suspects there's pressure not to reveal drug use.

ELLIOTT ALMOND: These people invest a lot of money to put up an image on television screens and in newspapers and radio, and it's very important. They want to protect that investment anyway they can.

SPENCER MICHELS: Lab director Catlin admits there have been pressures to make sports look clean.

DR. DONALD CATLIN: The pressures do permeate, but they don't work. There's only one way to play this, and that's the right way. Nobody's going to make a deal with me. Nobody's ever asked me to look aside.

SPENCER MICHELS: Catlin says that rogue chemists will continue to try to satisfy the demand for undetectable drugs, and that it will take money and equipment to stop them. So what is the solution? If there's going to be more THG's, can they always outrun you?

DR. DONALD CATLIN: No.

SPENCER MICHELS: No?

DR. DONALD CATLIN: No. We can out run them any day, but we need the tools. We need the tools to outrun them. We can make sport clean.

SPENCER MICHELS: Penalties and testing policies for steroid use vary widely among sports organizations. The current scandal has brought new attention to those policies and their enforcement.

RAY SUAREZ: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, interrogating Saddam Hussein, and looking back at 2003.

FOCUS - INTERROGATING SADDAM

RAY SUAREZ: Interrogating the fallen and now captured dictator of Iraq. Margaret Warner has that story.

MARGARET WARNER: Though President Bush has promised Saddam Hussein will be subjected to a public trial, the U.S. wants to interrogate him first. That's going on right now at an undisclosed location believed to be in Iraq. Army interrogators started the job before the lead role was turned over to the CIA.

What do interrogators want to know from the deposed Iraqi dictator, and how should they go about getting the information out of him?

For that, we turn to retired Army Col. W. Patrick Lang, former chief of Middle East intelligence at the Defense Intelligence Agency, he was involved in interrogating captured Iraqi military officers after the '91 Gulf War; and Amatzia Baram, Professor of Middle Eastern History at the University of Haifa, Israel, he's written several books on Saddam Hussein and in February of this year co-authored a psychological profile of Saddam for the U.S. military. He's now a senior fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace. Welcome to you both.

First, Pat Lang, what is it the United States wants to know from Saddam Hussein?

COL. W. PATRICK LANG: Well, what they should want to know is -- are several different categories of information. The first thing, which they've been working on since his capture, is the immediate tactical information needed to support the army's operations in the field in Iraq. And they're well suited to do that, and so they've been working at that steadily.

The other two categories of information I think they need to know about is, first of all, whatever it is that really connects Saddam Hussein and his government to the larger world of Islamic terrorism. That needs to be proven or disproven. And if it can be proven, then what he would know about this would be very useful indeed.

And the third thing, which isn't getting discussed very much lately, is what I would call his ability to inform us of the strategic context of the actions we have undertaken in Iraq and other ones that we might choose to do. Because his government existed for a long, long time, and contrary to the descriptions of him sometimes, he was really quite a bit "hands on" kind of manager; that's how he survived in office for all these years, the kind of person who kept close track of what was going on, insisted on being informed, so in my opinion he has a great resource of information about his government's relations with the surrounding countries, with companies in Europe, with various movement across the world, and he's a kind of resource that could be exploited for many years, indeed, it's kind of like keeping Hannibal Lectur in a cage somewhere and going and asking him questions every once in a while.

MARGARET WARNER: What would you add to that? What about weapons of mass destruction?

AMATZIA BARAM: I would agree with everything. I try to just go into detail. WMD -- weapons of mass destruction -- where, what, how much, something left -- they're important because it maybe privatized if it is still there, may be used by his people against opposition -- against people you are caring for and so on. Ring leaders. Again, what Pat said is exactly that, but in practice it means finding the ring leaders, those who conduct the operation against you. Third of all, finances, who has the money, still a few hundred million dollars are missing, and of course, weapons caches, where you have those caches which will be used by your people. And again I agree - again with the contacts between him and al-Qaida, bin Laden or other Islamic groups.

MARGARET WARNER: Or, for that matter, other governments in the world. Now, Pat Lang, what was behind -- initially army interrogators were doing the job and in fact, the Pentagon was quite public about it. Every day they'd say we had another session with him. Then sort of mid-week, that first week, Rumsfeld announced the CIA was taking over. Why? Was that a good idea?

COL. W. PATRICK LANG: One thing about this whole thing that surprises me is that it's been obvious that Saddam Hussein was number one on the list of people you want to capture in Iraq. And they had seven or eight months to think about this, and you would have thought that they would have had a task force set up and ready to take charge of him as soon as he was captured, that doesn't seem to have been the case. Instead, the local force of army intelligence officers, interrogators, took charge of him and of course began interrogating him to get what they needed in order to support the forces in the field.

MARGARET WARNER: Namely about the --

COL. W. PATRICK LANG: The operation, the leaders, the local -- and the caches of weapons, all that kind of stuff. But then it became clear after a while that in fact there were some problems with continuing to interrogate this fellow with these people because army interrogators are typically rather junior, fairly young people. You're talking about junior commissioned officers, warrant officers, sergeants, people like that, who are well trained to do what they're supposed to do, which is interrogate prisoners of war.

But when you're dealing with a head of state and someone who thinks so grandly of himself, if you don't put him in that situation in complete isolation, and face him withsophisticated people of real international level substance for whom he feels after a while he has to be responsive -- then, in fact, you risk the fact that he begins to take charge of the situation psychologically. And there were a good many mistakes taken in that they were overly familiar I would say with this guy. There was even one instance in which a group of soldiers found it amusing to stand behind him while another of their comrades took their picture with him sitting in the middle. And it makes a great souvenir but it doesn't contribute to his treating you in a serious way.

MARGARET WARNER: From your study of Saddam, what would you say are the important qualities in an interrogator now that the CIA is in, but still it's going to be all kinds of people.

AMATZIA BARAM: I would say interrogator and circumstances into which you are thrusting a man. I would start at least with great respect, no more than respect, but with good conditions, even a swimming pool if I could have one, good food. I would keep him in good condition, giving, you know, not everything, but a lot, and the interrogators should be two different kinds of people: that is the good cop version, because the bad cop is a totally different circumstance. Either a man in his late 50's or early 60's, respectable, senior -- he should think it is someone who is someone very senior -- may be an army general, may be a CIA very senior interrogator, who would show respect to him and who he could see him as his equal, or -- or together with a very attractive and very bright woman that would play to his fantasies. I have read three books he wrote recently, two out of which --

MARGARET WARNER: That Saddam wrote.

AMATZIA BARAM: Saddam wrote -- one of them is really an autobiography, another one is a different kind of a psychological -- his fantasy world, and that my conclusion is the man is eager to have this kind of very attractive, very bright young woman who is very admiring, and I'm not talking about any sexual -- just this kind of --

MARGARET WARNER: Hero worship.

AMATZIA BARAM: Yes, hero worshipping, and I believe that that could also do a lot of good. If this fails and it may fail, then I'd switch to the opposite -- make his conditions bad -- there is a limit to which we can go because you are not Saddam Hussein -- but very uncomfortable, he must be very uncomfortable and not abuse him, and then the good cops will be coming and telling him we are trying to secure for you the best conditions that you deserve; you're the head of state. But if you don't cooperate, we can't compete because there is a tug of war between us and the other guy, the bad guy.

MARGARET WARNER: You've done this before.

COL. W. PATRICK LANG: I agree. I think this is the right approach, especially the first part. It's very necessary with a man like this of this stature, at least an imagined stature on his part, to make him believe that you are taking him in a serious way, you are in fact respectful of him and you have to establish yourself in such a way as the interviewer or interrogator so that after a while he believes he has to justify himself to you, so that once you've reached that point, you start to disagree with him in subtle ways, to challenge him, to question him, whether his knowledge was correct, and perhaps he'd been taken advantage of and he wasn't as smart as he thought he was, and then he'll feel that he has to prove himself to you to maintain this relationship because you're all that he has. He's isolated from everything else, and his relationship to you and the other interrogators is all he has left.

MARGARET WARNER: So that's very important, to create a system set up in which he feels completely dependent.

COL. W. PATRICK LANG: Absolutely, that there's nothing left except him and you.

AMATZIA BARAM: And play to his ego.

MARGARET WARNER: But, now but he is a smart man. He doesn't have to say anything. Why would he even talk?

AMATZIA BARAM: Because he gets dependent on you, because you are playing to his ego. He loves, he loves to tell people how successful he was, and how good he was for his people. If you play to this, you might say to him, for example, "Yes, you are president, you did a lot for your people, wonderful and so on, but look at it this way. Your weapons of mass destruction, what went wrong? It seems to us -- some of our people are saying that your own subordinates cheated you, they cheated you. How could you possibly." And play both on his ego and on his wish to prove that nobody cheated him and that he was absolutely perfect; that could help.

COL. W. PATRICK LANG: You become his universe and he has to exist and the only existence he has in this universe in this sphere of isolation is the relationship he has with you.

MARGARET WARNER: How far, what kind of coercion can be used? I know there's a Geneva Convention against torture and the U.S. says it doesn't engage in torture, but how uncomfortable can he be made if that is the M.O. after a while?

COL. W. PATRICK LANG: Well, you could make him uncomfortable, as was just said, but in fact --

MARGARET WARNER: How?

COL. W. PATRICK LANG: Well, you can leave the lights on in his cell. You know, you can play music in his cell. You can deprive him of sleep. You can make him stand up for long periods of time. You can do all these kinds of things, but these are really just kind of things you might do to keep him off balance, but the real essence of the thing is the part in which you essentially seduce him into cooperation with you through his ego. Just as we have both said here, that's the way to do that, and he'll talk to you in the end if you persist in that and you make him believe enough, he'll tell you just about everything.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Brief final subject, latest subject, he also of course is going to trial. Now how does that complicate the job of the intelligence interrogators?

AMATZIA BARAM: I would say it makes it very difficult because he knows that all he needs to do is to hold on until the trial; then they can't touch him anymore, and so you have a limited time, it's a window of opportunity. You have to take advantage of it. I would suggest the change of condition. If you move him from very good circumstances into very uncomfortable, that could help, and I would say one more thing. He is very, very -- he's frightened and panicky whenever there is a sign of illness, of losing a limb or something -- if you can induce something that looks like gangrene, just an idea, that looks like gangrene --

COL. W. PATRICK LANG: He's a hypochondriac.

MARGARET WARNER: Really?

AMATZIA BARAM: And he's absolutely a hygiene freak. When that happens, he gets so worried that in order to treat it, "We don't have to treat you. We don't have to. You know, if you die of gangrene, you die" -- that, to my mind -- of course it shouldn't be gangrene obviously; it should look like it.

MARGARET WARNER: The complications of the trial.

COL. W. PATRICK LANG: The problem is, is he's being treated as though he were a prisoner of war. Now, in other words, he's not entitled to a lawyer. Well, prisoners of war are not normally charged with anything. He doesn't have any ability to refuse to talk to you because he's not defended yet. When you make him into a defendant, if he is in front of anything besides an Iraqi internal court if there are any real international jurists, they're going to start questioning whether or not the statements he's made previously are admissible in evidence, and that could be a big problem.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. We'll have to leave it there. Thank you both very much. Fascinating.

FOCUS - EVENTFUL YEAR

RAY SUAREZ: Finally on this first day of the New Year, some reflections on the year just past, and to Terence Smith.

TERENCE SMITH: We take a look back at 2003 with presidential historian Michael Beschloss and Richard Norton Smith, director of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. With journalist and author Haynes Johnson; Roger Wilkins, professor of history at George Mason University; and Diane Kunz, a former professor of diplomatic history at Columbia and Yale Universities. Welcome to you all. Michael Beschloss, obviously Iraq was the principal focus in 2003. How do you think people will look back on the U.S. Actions in Iraq in 2003?

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: Well, here's a classic case where history actually does have some value, because I can assure you it's going to be very different from the way that we look at it tonight. Twenty or thirty years from now, we're going to know all sorts of things about how George Bush got us into this war, how he ran it, and also how he ran the occupation that we can't possibly know until we get diaries, national security documents, the kind of stuff it takes a long time to get out. The more important thing it is we will have hindsight, because 20 years from now, less than that, we will know whether this war ultimately have succeeded in making a democratic Iraq, a democratic Middle East as the president has hoped. Two quick examples: Lyndon Johnson in Vietnam. We were talking on New Year's Day 1966, that would have looked as if it might have been a success. Years later, of course, we know it was one of the great failures in American history. Ronald Reagan -- if we were talking in 1984, New Year's, many, some on this panel might have said that Reagan was risking an unnecessary confrontation with the Soviet Union. With hindsight, there's a lot of evidence that his policies led to the end of the Cold War.

TERENCE SMITH: Richard Norton Smith, your take on Iraq as you look back on it.

RICHARD NORTON SMITH: Well, Michael's absolutely right, it takes time to form perspective. On the other hand, there are some things going on right now that are spin-offs of Iraq, certainly in domestic politics, to the extent for which the presidential race, in particular the race for the Democratic nomination has been shaped by this one issue. It's hard to believe that Howard Dean would be where he is today if it had not been for Iraq. I mean, Governor Dean has very skillfully tapped into much of the real opposition that many people have felt about the war, but also the frustration, the resentment, and yes, even the anger that many Democrats have felt about this administration since its inception. And it's a fascinating process to watch. Governor Dean used Iraq very successfully I think to define himself, and even more, to define the rest of the field. He set himself apart, he made himself the "un-Bush." And it's also, at the same time, something of a gamble if the Iraqi policy a year from now is perceived to have been a success, just as if a year from now the economy is believed to be stronger than it is today and poised to be stronger still, then it's a gamble the Democrats may wish they hadn't taken.

TERENCE SMITH: All right. Roger Wilkins, your perspective.

ROGER WILKINS: Well, I think... I'd lower the focus some and look at the U.S. Congress and say that the fecklessness of the Congress in examining this war before we got into it is really horrifying. If you think that each of those kids out there-- except for the ones who are from Puerto Rico or from the District of Columbia-- each of those kids has a congressman and two senators who are supposed to be looking out for them, you know, worrying about putting them in harm's way and casting the heaviest vote they can. Well, the congress waffled and ducked and said essentially, "well, Mr. President, we take we'll take your word for it." That's not the way the Constitution is supposed to work. And I have a 20-year-old daughter who is a privileged kid and is therefore not in harm's way. But she's about the age of Jessica Lynch, and I think of kids like Jessica Lynch and think they deserve a better Congress. They deserved a better Congress when this issue came up. Maybe for folks like me when they did Medicare, I think we deserved a better Congress, too.

TERENCE SMITH: Diane Kunz, Roger's concerned principally about what happened going into the war. What's your view of how we're going to look back on Iraq in 2003?

DIANE KUNZ: Abraham Lincoln observed during the Civil War that he didn't transform events, events transformed him. And I think to me, that's one of the amazing stories of this year, the way in which George Bush, who campaigned on an anti- nation-building platform, has now become the spiritual grandson of Woodrow Wilson. It was Woodrow Wilson who pledged to make the world safer democracy, but in fact only extended democracy to the extent he could to Europe. After World War II, the United States helped democracy come to Asia. And now this year, in the post- Iraq phase, the United States has committed itself to democracy as an international platform in general, and in Iraq in particular. This is a very difficult job. As everyone has pointed out, we certainly don't know how it will turn out, but the fact that it is George Bush and his administration that is leading the charge has been to me a very amazing development this year.

TERENCE SMITH: Haynes Johnson, you get to bat clean-up here on Iraq put it in context.

HAYNES JOHNSON: I'd like to reinforce what Michael said and what Diane just said. We're not going to know a year from now, five years from now, maybe not 20 years from now what the consequences of this are, except it has enormous consequences. We've had nine wars in the American experience since our revolution up until the two Gulf Wars-- which I count both wars with Iraq-- and we've never had a war like this -- preemptive war, the concept of it, what it means, trying to bring democracy to the Middle East. It would be wonderful if that works, and all that sort of thing, but I must say that we aren't going to know. And so I think the stakes are tremendous. What happens affects everything in this country, it affects all our relationships with the world, it affects the Congress, the political system, and the rest. This is a fateful-- and you can easily say that about every year, some great issue-- but I think this is maybe the most important single event I can remember since World War II, and it's different because we don't know who the enemy is.

ROGER WILKINS: I think you're right in another way, and Richard raised it. This campaign, this year in 2004, ought to be about a lot of these issues.

HAYNES JOHNSON: I would hope it would be.

TERENCE SMITH: And at least the Democratic primary, Richard was saying, already is.

ROGER WILKINS: Dean is trying to make it that way, and it remains to be seen how bold the Democrats are in raising this issue.

HAYNES JOHSON: But they're all long-term issues -

ROGER WILKINS: That's right.

HAYNES JOHNSON: -- and that's why it can't be debated about where it's going and so forth.

TERENCE SMITH: All right, Iraq was the big story, but it was not the only story of the year. Michael, when you look back on the year, what development or trend stands out as distinguishing in your mind?

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: Well, two surprises. I think a year ago, if we were talking about the presidential campaign as we now are-- I'll only speak for myself, I'm sure everyone else would have been wise and sage-like unlike me-- I would have said that this process we have that nominates candidates-- which I think is atrocious-- had become so front- loaded that it's impossible for anyone to get nominated by a party unless you've been raised you can raise an enormous amount of money from special interests and also be extremely well- known. And Howard Dean tonight is the front-runner on the Democratic side, completely disproves all that, was able to tunnel his way through this horrible system in a way that not only I think are we surprised by, but in a way, you know, whether you like Dean or not, I think suggests some hope to what I think is this dreadful system. The other thing is that George Bush we're talking about tonight as a very important president, whether he turns out to be importantly great or importantly otherwise, that's something we wouldn't have seen I think at the end of 2001, a president who was elected under the most difficult circumstances possible to even call it a narrow margin, you know, came in with, you know some kind of margin in Congress, and now is not only a very influential president, but someone who, at least tonight, has a very good chance to get reelected. It does show that some things are surprising.

TERENCE SMITH: Richard, what's your view of that? Beyond Iraq, what comes out and strikes you as important and significant for this year?

RICHARD NORTON SMITH: Well, I think this was the year when a host of gay-related issues forced their way to the center of the stage, not just in the popular culture, not just a "queer eye for the straight guy," but in the Supreme Court, and increasingly on the political campaign trail. Imagine if you have a race next year between Governor Dean, who signed the civil union law in Vermont, and George W. Bush, whose political base, including the religious right, is active, as we speak, trying to amend the Constitution to prevent anything like gay marriage from being legal. It has the potential to be a divisive and even ugly contest.

TERENCE SMITH: Roger Wilkins?

ROGER WILKINS: I would say that the Michigan case, the affirmative action case before the Supreme Court. We always knew that the Baake case that kale down in the '70s would be tested and assaulted, but it came up at a propitious time, 40 years after the march on Washington and 49 years after Brown V. Board. And it seems to me that what we've learned in those decades is how powerful the culture is in still pushing back the opportunities for black people. It's opened up in a number of ways, but still, the winds of the culture restrain black opportunities, Hispanic opportunities very significantly as you can see by disparities in income and wealth and occupations and all therest. But the assault on Baake was very powerful, and this is a generally regarded as a conservative Supreme Court. Justice O'Connor has had a swing vote for a long time, but nobody could have expected that she would have reaffirmed the principle of Baake as resoundingly as she did in her majority opinion in the Michigan Law School case. So I think that that was a very large landmark in the law.

TERENCE SMITH: Diane Kunz, what bubbles to the top for you other than Iraq in 2003?

DIANE KUNZ: The transformation of American life post-September 11, 2001. For the decade 1991-2001, our country had the luxury of putting foreign affairs on the back burner, and since 2001, they have been front and center. It's not just the Iraq war, it's all our military and our economic strategies all linked now to what's going to happen in the fight against weapons of mass destruction and state-sponsored terrorism.

TERENCE SMITH: Certainly a huge change in day to day life, Haynes Johnson?

HAYNES JOHNSON: I think the long-term economic problems the country now faces, going from huge surpluses of $6 trillion to an annual deficit of $500 billion-- and this is not just for this year, it's affecting Iraq, military spending. Every state house, every mayor's office, every county commissioner's office, every education, George and I teach, Michael, we all teach. And cutbacks across the board down to all levels, and what it means is that there are choices before the country we haven't even begun to talk about. We talk about the election. I hope we talk about these things. But the priorities are tremendous and that's in the long term, going to affect everybody's who's listening to us, particularly my grandchildren.

TERENCE SMITH: You know, we don't have much time left, but I wonder if we could play the Time Magazine game of person of the year. The magazine chose the U.S. soldier, rather than an individual. Could you tell me very, very quickly, Michael, starting with you, who you'd choose and why?

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: I think the U.S. soldier is absolutely terrific, very central in all of our minds tonight. And really should be because it is one way of, you know, really focusing a question like whether we should go to war.

TERENCE SMITH: Richard?

RICHARD NORTON SMITH: I'll take a cue from Roger. I think Sandra Day O'Connor, whether it's affirmative action, gay rights, campaign finance reform, she's not only the swing vote, but her political skills at bringing about a consensus on a divided court makes this arguably the O'Connor court.

TERENCE SMITH: Roger, a candidate?

ROGER WILKINS: Well, I'm old enough to have been really hideously disappointed that Hitler was killed, he killed himself, Mussolini was killed. These guys do these hideous, horrible, horrible things to human beings, and they are never called to account, I mean the worst ones, and so I pick Saddam for coming out of his... running away, coming out of his-- his spider hole and looking like the miserable creature that we always thought he was. And finally, I got another guy.

TERENCE SMITH: Who's that?

ROGER WILKINS: For us old geezers, the manager of the Marlins, 72-year-old Jack McKeon. That -- beats the Yankees.

TERENCE SMITH: For winning the World Series against the Yankees. Diane Kunz?

DIANE KUNZ: Well, I've got to go with George Bush. Better or for worse, Iraq is his war, and I think we have to either give him credit or blame for transforming the Republican Party into the not-tax, but let's spend a lot party.

TERENCE SMITH: Haynes?

HAYNES JOHNSON: I agree. I think George Bush has dominated the year in all kinds of ways. I agree with Michael, what he said about the American soldier symbolically and so forth, but I think Bush has been a towering, dominant figure and we're going to watch him now as he proceeds into this year and long into the future. I think he has dominated the world stage, not just the American stage.

TERENCE SMITH: All right, thank you all five very much for 2003, now on to 2004.

GROUP: Happy New Year, Terry.

TERENCE SMITH: Thank you. Happy New Year.

RECAP

RAY SUAREZ: Again, the major developments of this day: The eve and first day of the New Year have so far passed safely, with traditional celebrations, parades and bowl games being held with stepped up security. The death toll from a New Year's Eve car bombing in Baghdad rose to at least six with thirty wounded. And rescue crews in Iran today pulled more people alive from rubble as President Bush and Iranian officials speak of prospects for improving relations between the two nations. We'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Ray Suarez. Thank you and Happy New Year.